Skip to main content

Learning to Embrace Change

A lot of the country is experiencing the joy and beauty of late Spring. Next month will be summer. Here in Wyoming we are experiencing 4th Winter. May 1st and we have a couple of inches of wet, slushy snow and more keeps falling. It looks more like early March than May Day. Yet, just a couple of days earlier it was beautiful and spring like here in town.

The weather changes and we can't totally predict it. Our meteorologists do their best, but even the experts can't totally predict it. Everything changes. The saying goes, "The only certain, things in life are death and taxes". While somewhat funny, it is true. Life is about change. Change is a constant. Life is a continual adaptation to change.

I am not someone that really likes change. I like to get in a groove and stay there for a good while. I like to keep friends for life. I wear clothes that are old, because I'm comfortable with my wardrobe and see no need to change it. The one thing I like to change is the arrangement of my furniture.

When I am stressed, when I can't sleep, when I need to relax, I rearrange my furniture (so yes it gets moved often). The nice thing about this is that all parts of my carpet get vacuumed often! The change with the familiar is nice. Same furniture, so that's the same, just a different layout. That's enough change for me!

With parenting, as with life, comes a lot of change. It seems like my daughter is always changing. Always growing. Always wanting to try new things. I am trying to embrace it, to encourage her to try new things and to stick with those things she finds success doing. It is fun watching her make her way in the world. Yet, it is hard for this stick in the mud mom to watch her grow and change. I want to keep her my fun loving little girl while I want her to grow and be the woman God has designed, to be a woman after God's own heart.

Change. Maybe I don't like it because a lot of my changes haven't been happy ones and they have been sudden. They brought trauma with them. More than anything I want to protect my daughter from experiencing the trauma I went through. Life has already shown me that I'm incapable of that. Her dad showed us that, that even the family circle isn't always a safe place.

As I creep closer to being a 40 year old I am learning that embracing change and accepting it for what it is can mean letting good things come into my life. Change can mean new friends, a fun new car, new furniture. It can mean accomplishing new milestones. Mostly, by accepting change with grace and even excitement I am teaching my daughter to embrace change for the reality that it is. And that is parenting, growing as an individual for personal growth, but also so that I can help my daughter grow as well. To prepare her for the life that she will face, to teach her to depend upon God when things happen she doesn't like.

Change. Not easy, but I am learning to embrace it.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

No Sleep & A Friend Who Gets it!

One of the battles Snowflake and I have fought over the last 4.5 years is with sleep. She started out life as the greatest sleeper in the history of baby sleep. Quickly she was sleeping for 4-5 hours at a time. When she was awake she was inquisitive, happy and fun. When she was asleep she was O-U-T, out! She could sleep in the bowling alley! I thought I had birthed the world's best sleeper. I did not deal with new mom exhaustion. I was blessed. AND THEN... Well it started when she was fourteen months old. When our life changed. People say that little humans are resilient, and they are, but they notice and respond to major life changes. They are human after all and trauma affects us all, age doesn't matter. The young, old and in between are all changed by traumatic events, and Snowflake, she has a background with trauma. It isn't easy to lose a parent at any age, when you are too young to understand why that parent vanished and then the other parent moves you to a brand ...

Fatigue is Evil

In 2009 while at seminary I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis and its bedfellow Chronic Fatigue. Finally after years and multiple misdiagnosis issues, I had answers.  I could put a name to what my body was doing.  It isn't pretty folks. And no, I'm not too young.  RA can hit anyone at any age. I can cope with the pain. I have strategies for that.  What I really hate the most is the fatigue.  Fatigue is not just being tired or sleepy.  This is more.  Imagine carrying an 80 pound pack up your state's tallest peak with no training.  Picture yourself at the top. That is not even enough.  Fatigue is in your bones, in your head, your muscles, each cell is weary, beyond weary. Fatigue is part of many other disorders.  For those with pain disorders part of it comes from being in pain ALL. THE. TIME. The pain can sometimes be masked, but it is a partner for life. What is the hardest is being this weary and not able to go on walks, to ...

Family Photos & Back to School Photos

In mid August my parents celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary. A big deal in a country where it is stated half of all marriages last less than 10 years. As a way to celebrate, my gift to my parents and our whole family, was to pay a professional photographer to take family photos. A way to commemorate having both daughters and all three grand kids in the same room. Originally we were going to have them taken outside at a local landmark. The backdrops would be fun and gorgeous, a mansion for some photos and the mountains for the rest. You can't beat God's artistry as a background for photos, and the mansion is just a fun local area for photos. Well, the weather decided to act up, and Mother Nature threw a little crying fest that morning (the only time we had available for photos) and forced us to relocate. So, we moved inside to our parents' living room. A room were many a photo has been taken. We stretched our photographer's creativity and willingness to work wit...